Resourceful Nonviolence

February 23, 2025
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RWCP
1 Samuel 25: 2-34; Ps. 103; 1 Peter 3: 8-12; Luke 6: 27-38
 
Our Gospel this Sunday is one we have heard many times. I’d like to point out two things about it, and then move on to our fascinating first reading. We understand that we should treat others as we would like to be treated. Almost every religion and culture has a similar guideline.  But then Jesus says to go beyond that—to treat others as they would like to be treated. He asks us to love our enemies and do good to them. He asks us to give without expecting repayment. He asks us to spend our lives working on loving as freely as God loves, remembering that God loves “even the ungrateful and the wicked.”
 
On the business of turning the other cheek: Being slapped on the right cheek in Jesus’ culture was a back-handed slap- the way a superior would slap a subordinate, a cheap shot. It was meant to shock, to catch the other off-guard, to wake them up to the boss’s displeasure. Offering the left cheek would mean refusing to fight back. It would demand being struck as an equal. It would be saying, “Go ahead, slap me again. This time recognizing my humanity. Looking one another in the eye. Do you have the nerve to do that? Or the cruelty? Or are you only capable of impulsive outbursts?”
 
In the midst of freezing government aid to sick and poor people all over the world, of thousands of hardworking civil servants being fired arbitrarily, of our Chief Executive going back on all our country’s promises to its allies, our response must be to stand up and resist, but without violence. Violence, name-calling, profanity, disrespect—all these rob us of the power of love. Dr. Martin Luther King said,
“So Jesus says love. When he says it he means it. Love is not meekness, without muscle. Love is not sentimentality without spine. Love is not a tender heart without a tough mind. While it is none of that, it does mean caring. Love means going to any length to restore the broken community. Love means going the second mile to restore the broken community. Love means turning the other cheek to restore the broken community.”
 
 Violence only snowballs—remember Dr. Suess’ Butter Battle Book? On the other hand, returning compassion for cruelty destroys the power of evil. It increases the measure of gracious mercy in the world. But we are only capable of behaving graciously through the grace of God. The Holy Spirit helps transform us to be able to imitate the mercy of Christ. We are able to love unselfishly because God has so loved us first.
 
To me, the most unique perspective today is provided by our first reading, the story of Abigail. This reading is never included in the canonical lectionary, for a Sunday or a daily Mass. Abigail was in a tight spot. Her foolish husband had thoughtlessly disrespected the leader of a powerful army. But Abigail thought quickly and spoke gracefully to avert a war. And she offered food- bread and wine, with meat and fruit. She proved that she recognized the humanity of David and his troops and offered what all humans need and enjoy—nourishment, hospitality, sharing one’s gifts.
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David appreciated the food and wine, but most of all the opportunity to pause and reconsider his actions. In the end, he blessed Abigail most for delivering him from the guilt of committing bloodshed and revenge. He wanted to follow God’s law of love, and Abigail had helped him find a way to do it. She helped find a non-violent way to solve the problem, a way to supersede disrespect with honor
 
Let us learn to be Abigails. Let us learn to right wrongs by honest, respectful communication and sharing our blessings. Let us work to turn around potential violence by grace and attention to meeting the needs of others. Let us strive to be smarter, stronger, and more loving than those who live by the sword, by looking for peaceful ways to resolve conflicts and make sure everyone involved feels they have been heard and listened to. Let us, by our examples, learn to guard one another against the guilt of violence against our created human and more-than-human siblings. Let us endeavor, over the course of our lives, to be compassionate as God is compassionate, and to leave any judgement of others to God. ​

Seeking God and ways to model God’s love 

January 5, 2025
Epiphany
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RWCP
1 Kings 10: 1-13; Ps. 72; Galatians 3: 26-28; Matthew 2:1-12
 
          Yesterday started the official ceremonies to lay to rest President Jimmy Carter. I have always admired President Carter, as I know many of you do, as an authentic spiritual seeker, someone who spent his life trying to understand the love of the Creator, and how we can embody that love to make the world a more peaceful, loving place for everyone. His words and actions demonstrated to me that he understood that equality and inclusion were crucial. When he was governor of Georgia, he stunned segregationists there by declaring, in his inaugural address, “The time for racial discrimination is over. No poor rural white or black person should ever have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity of an education, a job or simple justice.” Later in his career he wrote a book, after conferring with experts at conferences for a year, about equality for women, in which he said, “My own experiences and the testimony of courageous women from all regions and all major religions have made it clear that there is a pervasive denial of equal rights to more than half of all human beings, and this discrimination results in tangible harm to all of us, male and female.” Pres. Carter understood that that respect, acceptance, and equality were integral to building the Reign of God, the Beloved Community.
 
          All three of our readings seem to make the same statement. Our first reading is said to describe the high point of King Solomon’s secular career, the building of the Temple being the religious high point. The gentile Queen of Sheba, the most important, richest, and wisest monarch in the entire region, (yet unnamed,) visited to survey Solomon’s kingdom, and to seek understanding of his God. Apparently, they grew to respect one another, and the Queen to respect Solomon’s God. She observed, “God loves God’s people eternally, and so made you ruler to maintain law and justice.” Their encounter was one of acceptance, giving and receiving, and honor.
Our second reading, from Paul to the Galatians, is foundational to our inclusive catholic movement, an expression of the truth that the Holy Spirit calls all people to ministries of all different kinds, regardless of race, occupation, gender, sexuality, physical ability, or marital status. The acceptance and openness modeled by Jesus and Paul to all believers were part of the new world they sought to build, a Kindom that reflected God’s pervasive love. “In Christ, there is no Judean or Greek, slave or free, male or female. All are one in Jesus the Christ.”
 
          The ultimate seekers were the Magi, gentile astronomers trying to understand the spiritual realities of the cosmos. Their dedication to this mission contrasted with that of the chief priests and religious scholars, who seemed to have no interest in visiting Jesus themselves, but were happy to refer to the scriptures and point these foreigners toward Bethlehem. The Magi heaped expensive gifts on Jesus, but can be said to have received the gifts of insight and revelation. Like the Queen of Sheba, they returned with more than they gave. A God whose son was born one with the poor and minority people of his society was the perfect example for the Magi of the hope that existed to be able to build a better, more inclusive world. As Scott Erickson said in his book, Honest Advent, “The deep desire of the Magi was to connect with the Creator of the world, and they trusted the Creator to reveal the interior journey of the soul in the exterior world around them. They wanted to know God, and they were willing to move from observation to participation in the pursuit of knowing.”
 
          Let us continue to be seekers, friends. Let us look for ways to model God’s love in our lives, the best we can. Let us be radically inclusive, like Jimmy Carter, the Queen of Sheba, Paul, Jesus, and the Magi. Let us be willing to participate in the pursuit of knowing, and following, God.

Using Our Prophetic Spirit 

September 29, 2024
26th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RCWP
Numbers 11: 25-29; Ps. 19; Eph 4: 7, 11-16; Mark 9: 14-29, 38-41

              Most of you are aware of the Justice Action that some of us participated in on July 20, at the end of the US Catholic Bishops’ Eucharistic Congress, in downtown Indianapolis. We held signs and banners that day in support of all sacraments for all people. We prayed and sang and handed out leaflets in hopes of opening people’s minds to inclusion, in all roles in the Christian community, regardless of gender, sexuality, or past marital status.
 
              Response from people in the crowd that day was mostly positive, but a few folks objected to our ideas vigorously, and, usually, condescendingly. More than one priest, in full clerical garb, literally stood talking down to me and other members of our group, shaking their fingers and telling us we were mistaken, unenlightened, sinful, condemned to hell, etc.
 
              I wonder how Jesus would have responded if he were there. His statement in today’s Gospel, and that of Moses in the first reading, seem completely contrary to those of the finger-wagging priests. When told by his disciples that there were people outside their group performing miracles in his name, Jesus responded, “Do not stop such a one! … Whoever is not against us is for us. Whoever gives you a cup of water in my name, because you belong to Christ, will not lose God’s gratitude.” And when alerted that there were elders outside the designated group prophesying to God’s people, Moses said, similarly, “If only all of God’s people were prophets! If only God would bestow the spirit on them all!”
 
             Of course, we can say Jesus was there at our protest on July 20, and that he was expressing himself thru our voices, signs, leaflets, banners, and spirits. We had all thoughtfully prepared for our action that day with sincere prayer, study, and training regarding our right to express our opinions publicly. We trusted that we were endeavoring to speak prophetically, to deliver God’s word in a way that invites to change and transformation. We believed we were equipped by the Spirit to communicate truths that would help reform and strengthen the church. That is the motivation of every part of the Womenpriests movement.
 
            Unfortunately, in the institutional church, as in many hierarchies, there have always been tendencies for some leaders to talk down to the rank and file, usually to try to induce dependence. “Just follow our rules if you want to go to heaven,” has been typical. It sounds like it was even happening back when Ephesians was written! But this second reading encouraged us to talk back. “We are not infants,” it said. It calls us to an adult faith and critical thinking, challenging clericalism and domination by those who claim superiority. It encourages us to “…attain the unity of faith and knowledge of God’s Chosen One, maturing into the fullness of humanity.” And it affirms the unique gifts and talents with which God has blessed each person.
 
             As I see it, we are all in this together, this effort to find justice for ourselves and everyone around us. We each have some share of prophetic spirit resting on us, and God expects us to claim that voice to speak the truth we each alone know. Jesus showed us the example of speaking out in defense of those who were persecuted-- the women, the disabled, the sick, the poor, and those suffering mental illnesses. He asks us to do the same—to claim the power we have by virtue of our creation in God’s image, to refuse to be treated like infants, and to speak up for peace and equal rights like empowered adults. He asks us to “perform powerful acts of compassion,” all working to build up his Body and keep him alive forever and make his words heard in our world.
 
  
The Creator does not have any monopoly over the power to free and heal. Spirit lives in us all, and our Maker is not threatened by our collaboration with Them. Even more, God delights in our cooperation and sacred co-conspiracy. Should we muster the courage to do the difficult-yet-divine thing to reestablish liberation and righteousness, The Divine offers unyielding support for our initiative. Those who seek to hoard power and spiritual resource for themselves (clericalism, infantilization) are worthy of scrutiny. Instead, our communities of believers can be leaderful and outpouring with giftings of Spirit. We pray, we praise, we intercede, we lay hands, we speak tongues, we testify, because we know that the work of our Mother is communal.    -    Enfleshed
 
The prophetic word invites people to change and transformation……. Would that the prophetic spirit be stirred up in the lives of all people so justice can take lasting root to end all forms of oppression.    -      NCR
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Ecstasy, Reason, and God's Love
 
June 23, 2024
12th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RCWP

Job 38:  1-9, 12-18; All Shall Be Well, Joyce Rouse/Julian of Norwich; 2 Cor 5: 13-20; Mark 4: 35-41
 
           Julian of Norwich was a 14th century woman mystic who lived through very turbulent times, including the Black Plague in Europe. She experienced a series of sixteen mystical encounters with Jesus, revealing to her the love of God. In one of these encounters, Jesus told her, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

          Julian perceived this statement not as soothing, but as shocking. How could this possibly be, she thought, given the reality of pain, suffering, and violence in the world? Years later, she wrote how she had come to understand these words of Jesus: “Would you learn to see clearly your Lord’s meaning in this thing? Learn it well: Love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love… Why did he show it to you? For love… Thus I was taught that love was our Lord’s meaning.” She went on in her writings to portray God as a loving mother. She spent the rest of her life counseling people to avoid sin and live in love.

          Our readings show us other examples of this same age-old human question: How do understand the love of God when tragedy strikes in our lives? In our first reading, Job lost all his property, wealth, and even his children and family, one after another. He struggled to understand God as loving. His friends tried to convince him that God was vengeful. But God then addressed Job face-to-face, reminding him of the power and beauty of her gifts of creation, in the words of a loving mother. “Where were you when I spun the cosmos into being?... Who planted the earth with seeds of life?... Were you there when the seas filled the earth as waters burst forth from the womb?” “I am still present to you,” this mother-God seemed to say. “Joy and sorrow may pass through your life, but my love, like the sea and stars, always remain.”

          In our Gospel, the apostles sailed with Jesus across the Sea of Galilee, when a violent storm rose and threatened to drown them all. They were terrified and begged Jesus to protect them. Jesus calmed the seas and waves, and then asked his friends, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” The Gospel says they were filled awe and asked one another, “Who is this?”
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          So in these two accounts, Job and the apostles were left, not with understanding, but with awe of God. They were left with ecstatic wonder at God’s enduring presence with them.
 
          Our reading from Paul to the Corinthians is an attempt to approach understanding of God’s love, even when life is sad and confusing. Paul acknowledged that sometimes ecstasy and awe are our only ways of responding to God’s wonders. Yet our human reason demands understanding. He said, “If we seem ecstatic, it is for God.  If we appear of rational disposition, it is for you.  ….” Paul’s answer to this puzzle was this, “Jesus did die, , so that those who live might also no longer live for themselves, but for the raised and living body of Christ” Paul’s conclusion is the same as Julian’s: Whatever happens, we are called to love. We are called to live for others, to die to our own selfishness, and to live in self-giving love, as Jesus did.
 
          Jesus mentioned faith, asking the apostles in the boat, “Why are you afraid, have you no faith?” As I see it, faith seems to be at the crossing of ecstasy, or awe, and reason. Often, when we are facing tragedy, it is hard to recognize God’s love. We have to hang out in faith for a while. We know through reason that God does not wish for anyone to experience pain or loss. How could God have created this beautiful world and our beautiful relationships if she did not love us without reservation? Yet, because of God’s total love, she created freedom and choice for us. With freedom, comes the possibility of wrong choice, of violence and greed and death. Whatever happens, faith can sometimes tide us over until we are once again ready to recognize that God is love, and that, in the end, all shall be well. ​

Seeds of Justice
 June 16, 2024
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RCWP
 Ezekiel 17: 22-23; Ps. 65; 2 Cor 9: 5-15; Mark 4: 1-9, 26-33
 
                       Many of you probably know of the beautiful life and legacy of Sister Dorothy Stang, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur, who worked for 40 years in the Amazon to help defend the land and indigenous small farmers, in opposition to large landowners, multi-national corporations, and others who wished to destroy them. Like Jesus, and many other justice activists he inspired, she made a lot of enemies in the course of her compassionate work. She was martyred on Feb. 12, 2005, by assassins hired by corrupt ranchers in Brazil, as she was on her way to aid a family whose house and farm had been burned down.
           At Sister Dorothy’s funeral, one of the peasant farmers in attendance stood up and said, “Today we are not going to bury Sister Dorothy. We are going to plant her.” They understood that resurrection means following in the footsteps of a saint like Sister Dorothy, keeping her work alive by carrying it on. She had planted many seeds, and her community cultivated them by energetically continuing her justice efforts.
           If we look at our first reading today, from Ezekiel, in context, we see that the great eagle symbolizes God, and the planting of the cedar shoot is a metaphor for the establishment of God’s people in a new land. It is a prophetic command to us and to all to help provide homes for those who need them, and to stand up for those whose homelands are taken from them, or whose heritage and culture are threatened.
           Paul, in our second reading, from Second Corinthians, sends us a similar message of encouragement to help those in need. The letter this passage came from was sent to gentile Christians in Corinth, encouraging them to help the poor Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, and to do so with humility and gratitude. “Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully,” Paul advises them, and us. “You are glorifying God by living out the gospel of Christ through the generosity of your contribution to them and to all others.” We are called to bountifully sow support for those in need-- even those, maybe especially those, outside our cultural and faith traditions.
           Jesus calls us to fight for the poor by generously waging peace as well. In today’s gospel, he calls us to be like mustard seeds, growing up to provide shelter for many. Be like the good soil in which the seed grows readily, he tells us—deep, fertile, hospitable to new life for those whose previous life may have been destroyed. But he also reminds us to ground our work for the poor and homeless in prayer, and in humility before the endless loving creativity of God. Like the farmer who plants the seed and then harvests the grain without understanding how God makes it grow, we must try to work always in concert with God’s plan of home and livelihood for all, without judgement and without prejudice.
           Let us take the teachings in these readings to heart, and do what we can to be seeds of justice in this troubled world. Let us work to grow into the kind of strong trees that can provide wood for homes for those who need them. Let us humbly give up our lives as seeds to live as food, medicine, and shelter.
 

 
The multifaceted wholeness of  God
 
May 26, 2024
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RCWP
 
Deut 4: 32-34, 39-40; Ps. 33; Romans 8: 14-17; Matt 28: 16-20
 
 
             I would like to start today with a little audience participation. Is there one brave soul who could please stand up and explain some of their many roles in life? Maybe you could frame this by saying, “I am a _____,” and repeat it about several of the jobs and roles you have in life.  
           Thank you! We can see that any given person is not just one thing. We are all multifaceted, able to do many things, and to relate to other people and to God in many different ways. It seems to me, that if this is true of humans, it is surely true of God, the ultimate Person of all being, the most complete and inclusive Being there is.
          Our readings today give us a starting point with which to understand the many identities of God. They emphasize the three images of God traditionally grouped as the Holy Trinity, and these are rich and beautiful images. The first reading, from Deuteronomy, described the greatness, power, and originality of God the Creator. It is an ancient defense of monotheism, of course, written when this was a unique idea for people to follow. But it is also an inspiring and poetic praise of God, the Originator of all. In question form, it proclaims the superiority of the God of Israel, compared to all previous gods, saying, “…from the time God created human beings on this earth… has anything as great as this ever happened before?” And it proclaims that God’s greatness cannot be contained only in humans, saying, “Know this well, and take it to heart. God is everywhere, in the heavens and the earth, in the vastness of creation.” So God, the Deuteronomist proclaims, is in every creature and substance, all throughout the cosmos.
          Our second reading tells how Paul wrote to the Romans, a community of both Jews and Gentiles, about the Holy Spirit, stating that, “God’s Spirit beckons.” She constantly draws us, all of us, to herself and her wisdom if we choose to follow. And the Spirit offered, Paul stated, is a Spirit of adoption, which actually puts us on a relationship par with Christ. “The Spirit Herself joins our spirit confirming that we are children of God, God’s holy family!” Paul proclaims. “And so, if we are in solidarity with the Christ, in hardship, suffering, and even death, then we will also experience the blessings the Christ now enjoys, the glory that awaits.” As Sr. Mary McGlone explains, “This implies that we share in (Christ’s) relationship with God, and if with God, then with the rest of creation as well.” The Holy Spirit invites everyone to be one with Christ and the Creator, and ALL creation.
          Our gospel attributed to Matthew framed what has become the traditional Trinitarian Christian baptismal formula. It quoted Jesus as issuing what has come to be called The Great Commission, the call for disciples to go forth and baptize all peoples, “… in the name of God who is Father and Mother, the Child, Jesus the Christ, and the Holy Spirit.” This idea apparently evolved gradually as Christian theology, as one way to capture the way the followers of Christ understood the different facets of God’s being.
But certainly, we understand that there are many more aspects to our understanding of the character of God. Jesus mentioned many in his parables. He compares God, and the Reign of God, the perfect life of love which we all aim to help create, as a mustard seed, tiny, but capable of growing into a bush that can protect many birds. He said God is like yeast, with which a baker which could somehow transform flour into bread, comparing it to the caring and thirst for justice with which we can “leaven” and transform our relationships and society. Jesus said God is like a woman searching for lost coin, turning her house upside down to find it, then rejoicing with her friends and neighbors when it is found. His listeners, no doubt, could see the connection with a God who valued each and every person and creature, never willing to lose even one. And we can find many more examples in Jesus’ teachings.
          I’ve mentioned before Richard Rohr’s conception of the many manifestations of God’s being as a flow of love, each member equally contributing to and benefiting from the other. He says that this is a mystery that we can only understand contemplatively, through deep thought and meditation about and with God. He says, “To approach the Trinity in this way is not to understand at all, but to “stand under” a waterfall of infinite and loving Flow.” In this view, there can probably be as many identities of God as there are drops of water in a waterfall.
          To me, the most beautiful thing about this multi-factorial view of God is that it recognizes the endless variety of humans and other creatures, and that, as Paul said, God beckons ALL. And if God is incarnate, revealed in flesh like ours, flesh of all races, genders, sexualities, relationships statuses, occupations, levels of education, and physical abilities, then there is no limit to the acceptance and inclusion to which we are called. This is our challenge, I think, to embrace the many identities of God in the many identities of people and other creatures around us, and to love and fight for justice for them all. The Trinity is just a starting point. We can let science and art and sociology and all the other knowledge with which we have evolved lead us to fully know God in the endless variety of Creation.

Midrash: Sarah of Nazareth reflects on her lifelong friend.
 
May 12, 2024, Feast of the Ascension and Mother’s Day
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RCWP
Acts 1: 1-3, 6-11; Ps. 68; Eph 4:1-14; Mark 16: 9-15, 19-20 
 
My name is Sarah, and I am a follower of the one they call Jesus of Nazareth. If you are reading this, I hope it is because you also are his follower. I have faith and hope as I write this that his words and his Way will be alive forever.
            Jesus and I actually grew up in the same neighborhood in Nazareth. As a child, he loved to have fun, but always seemed a little preoccupied. His parents, Mary and Joseph, were very kind, gentle people, and he was like them. As he got older, he spent any free time he had listening to the rabbis and learning as much of our Hebrew scriptures as possible. As we approached adulthood, the oppressive abuses of the Roman occupiers of our region grew worse and worse. Jesus was very concerned about the way they affected the ability of the local farmers, merchants, and laborers to earn a living wage. But he did not go off and join the violent gangs trying to sabotage the Romans. He spoke out in protest, but always advocated for non-violence and reconciliation.
            When he was thirty years old, Jesus started actively teaching his vision of a reformed, justice-oriented observance of our Jewish faith. He wanted to tell everyone about the love of God he had experienced in prayer, his study of scripture, in nature, and in human relationships. He had a way of devising down-to-earth stories that made it clear to people that God’s love for them was unlimited, and that God wanted us to love one another in the same way. He developed quite a following, which made the local leaders feel threatened. So, unfortunately, he developed enemies as well.
            My mother and I joined Jesus as he began to travel around the region and toward Jerusalem, teaching and encouraging people to stand up for justice for themselves and others. He especially advocated for the ostracized, the lepers, the blind, the deaf, and people who seemed to have demons in their minds. We wanted to learn all we could from him, but, like his mother and the others who traveled with him, we wanted to support and protect him as well. We tried to convince him that Jerusalem was dangerous for him, and that he was better off staying in the small villages, letting people who wanted to learn come to him. But Jesus believed he had been sent by God to confront the injustices and corruption in our government and even our religious leadership there in the Temple city. He hoped he could make a difference with his message of selfless love.
            Eventually the number of Jesus’ disciples, and the challenging teachings he proclaimed, became too alarming to the civic and religious leaders in Jerusalem. They found a way to get rid of him. Watching his gruesome execution was the worst experience of my life. They tried to make an example of him with their cruelty. The other women and I stood by him until the end, though the soldiers ran most of the men off. We saw him dead on the cross, and buried in the tomb.
            We who were Jesus’ friends and followers were terrified that the Romans would come after us next. We hid out together. We gathered in an upper room and reminisced about all Jesus had taught us and how his example had affected our lives. The more we prayed and sang and remembered together, the more it seemed that Jesus was not dead, but vibrantly alive in our midst. It seemed like he would, in fact never die, as long as we had had breath to pass on his Way with our own words and actions. We came to understand that Jesus had embodied the love of God to us, that he had made God intimately real to each of us, and that his message had been that of the Christ the prophets had promised. Eventually, the loving impact he had on each of us helped us overcome our fear and begin to venture out to teach and model the love he had taught us. As time went on, we realized that, though Jesus was no longer physically with us, he would always be alive in our love for one another and the people we tried to teach and help. We realized that he had left his mission in our hands, to live out with our lives, and to encourage others to carry on.
            I have written this in hope that you will read it in the future and be inspired to continue living the Way of the Christ and passing it on as I have tried to do. We came to realize that Jesus had called us to be his eyes and voice and hands. Now I call you also to see as Jesus saw, speak loving and challenging words, as Jesus spoke, and work and build and heal, as Jesus did with such powerful divine love. 

2nd Sunday of Lent,, February 25, 2024
Helen Weber-McReynolds
Exodus 33: 9-20, 34:4-6, 27-32; Ps. 15; 2 Peter 1: 16-18; Mark 9: 2-10.
 
           You may have had the experience of driving through thick fog. You cannot see where you are going. The mist swirls around you, blocking your vision of the road ahead. You have to slow way down to be able to avoid hitting other cars or even be able to follow where the road leads. Sometimes, if you are walking in fog, it is so thick you cannot even see your hand in front of your face. It is disorienting. It is frightening. You have to watch and listen very carefully to be able to navigate your way safely. You may even have flown through thick clouds. Every few moments, there may be a brief break, and you can see light, but then you may enter another cloud and be blinded again. Finally, the pilot manages to guide your plane above or below the clouds and you can see the way ahead. The sky is clear. You know where you are going once again.

           All three of our readings today culminate in amazing brightness, clarity, vision, and radiance. But where in these stories does God’s voice come from? God’s voice comes from the cloud, the uncertainty, the foggy shadow, the area of unknowing and searching and blindness. Maybe transformation is found through dwelling in the cloud a while.

           Our Gospel tells us that when Peter, James, and John went up the mountain with Jesus, and saw Jesus transfigured with radiant, dazzling brightness, they were terrified. Peter started babbling, talking crazy. We are told he did not know what he was saying. Then a cloud appeared, casting its shadow over them. And from out of the cloud there came the voice of God, explaining the truth, clearing up the situation, confirming what they already suspected about Jesus- that he was one with God, beloved and sent to speak the truth. Our second reading uses similar language—stating that, when the disciples were on the mountain with Jesus, the voice of the Sublime Presence came from the cloud, honoring and glorifying Jesus, saying, “This is my Beloved, my own, on whom my favor rests.” And our first reading tells us that God appeared in a cloud to Moses, identifying Godself by name, and proclaiming, “I am your God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in kindness and faithfulness.” After forty days, Moses descended from the mountain, radiantly transformed, and with God’s gift of a clear covenant and way of life for the people Israel, written in stone.  We know that God appeared to Elijah from a cloud on Mount Carmel, as related in the first book of Kings, chapter 18. And there are other examples in scripture of God “coming upon” people to speak to them, as from a cloud, like when the Holy Spirit is said to have “come upon” Mary, after she consented to become the mother of Jesus.

            We all have times of fog and darkness in our lives, when the way is obscured, when we don’t know where we are going. We are forced to slow down and look and listen to discern the right path. To me, this is the meaning of Lent. It is a season to listen for God’s voice, to take more time for prayer and study, to try to be more aware of how God may be calling us. God calls us all to transfiguration, not usually in a sudden blaze of glory, but step by step, with growth in stages. We work and pray for transformation one day at a time, one Lent at a time, one season of clouded, confused vision at a time. But often we are blessed by moments of clarity, of transformation, of resurrection. We can see a way to help our human family members, and we step up and do the hard work to accomplish it. We identify an injustice and we do all we can to work together to change laws or raise money or educate people to make sure things are put right.

           In Matthew’s version of the Transfiguration, God’s words are said to be, “This is my beloved Son, in whom is all my delight.” At the Transfiguration, then, we are in the presence of delight. The brightness with which Jesus is described can seem intimidating. Who can be perfect? Who sees things completely clearly? But that’s not what is going on here. God’s love is tender and delighted, not only for Jesus, but for us, though sometimes we have a hard time believing it. And God asks us to participate in that tender, delighted love, by listening for God’s presence, and then passing that holy tenderness on.
 

​Healing and restoration to the community
 
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 4, 2024
Helen Weber-McReynolds
Job 5:9-11,16,18,27; Ps. 147; 1 Cor 9:1-6; Mark 1:29-31
 
Over the course of forty-two years working as a physician assistant, I have done a lot of thinking about the process of healing. Mostly I have thought about what a blessing it is to be involved in such a holy process, because, in the final analysis, it is God who is the ultimate healer. We who participate in the art and science of medicine can make a diagnosis and prescribe a therapy, but we know that God does the actual healing. Humans can’t actually make tissues heal or force the immune system to kill an infection. God controls those processes.
 
On the other hand, there are many ways I think God calls us to heal one another. For example, when we have conflicts in relationships, we have a responsibility to talk to one another and work those conflicts out. We also have a responsibility, I think, to participate in increasing scientific knowledge, if we can, or at least to use the knowledge we have. We are even called to heal ourselves, I think, by using what we know about diet and exercise and proper rest, for another example.
 
Our Gospel today is short but can teach us a lot about God’s healing. The verses from Mark’s gospel that we read today follow directly the ones we read last week. That gospel reading said that Jesus went to the synagogue on the Sabbath and taught (“with new authority.”) Today’s gospel described what happened later on that same Sabbath. It told us that after being at the synagogue, Jesus went to Simon and Andrew’s house. There Jesus found that Simon’s mother-in-law (Mark does not tell us her name) was ill with some kind of fever. Jesus went directly to her. He took her hand, and helped to raise her up from her bed. We are told “then the fever left her, and she began to serve, to deacon, to them.” In other words, Simon’s mother-in-law was restored to active participation in her community. Jesus helped her get beyond the isolation and indignity of illness, and back to the freedom to serve the people around her, to what she felt called by God to do.
 
In other stories of Jesus healing people in the gospels, we can see this restoration to the community is a common thread. Scientific understanding of disease was primitive in Jesus’ time, and it was often attributed to sin. So sick people tended be isolated from the community, and even disallowed from religious inclusion. Jesus’ healing may not have necessarily included biological cure, but we know from these stories that they definitely included social and collective healing of illness. In many of them, Jesus even called the community to participate in the social restoration of the healed person. For example, he asked the people around Lazarus to unbind him from the funeral cloths after he was raised. When he cured a person with leprosy, he told the person to go and show and show evidence of the healing to the priest, in other words, to ask for re-entry to the religious community. When he cured Jairus’ daughter, he told them to feed her, to help her get back to the family circle around the dinner table. We can think of the woman with the hemorrhage as taking responsibility for returning herself to the community, by seeking to touch Jesus’ clothing, to end the isolation the religious impurity laws had imposed on her.
 
So for Jesus, restoration to love and inclusion in the community, and the ability to serve within the community, seems to have been integral to healing. It seems he, like Job, sought to reverse the idea that illness and accident were due to sin and therefore sick and injured people should be excluded. Not in the Job passage we read today, but in chapter 7, verse 1, Job asked, “Is not human life on earth a drudgery?” In other words, he recognized suffering as part of the human condition, and not necessarily a punishment from God. So the priority for Jesus, and Job, was not to blame people for their sins, but to bring them back to love and service.
 
This should be our priority, as well, I think: to do what we can to help heal the inability of people to be included in participation and service in their communities. This might mean healing from racism, or from addiction, or from poverty, or from exclusion due to gender or sexuality, or immigration status. It seems we have a lot of reasons for excluding people these days. What can we do to help break down maybe one of these barriers to inclusion, even in a small way? I think that is what God is calling us to today.